Globalization Lays Siege to Forests and Communities:
Liberia

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"Throughout this terrible crisis the warring parties have financed themselves through the exploitation and export of Liberia's natural resources, particularly timber and diamonds."
— Environmental Lawyers Association of Liberia

Large-scale logging activities carried out under the regime of Charles Taylor are still in practice today.

Liberia has had a troubled history since its 1847 founding as a proposed haven for freed American slaves. Today it is the second poorest country in the world.

For over a decade, Liberia has been at war with itself and its neighbors. Former President Charles Taylor, elected in 1997 after leading a lengthy armed rebellion against the previous government, used illegal timber exportation, drug running and control of the "conflict-diamonds" trade to solidify and maintain his hold on power. While Taylor was forced to resign in August 2003, it is unclear whether the mechanisms and channels he developed to exploit Liberian timber resources remain in place.

In the midst of this civil instability, Silas Kpanan' Ayoung Siakor ran the Save My Future Foundation (SAMFU) from 2000 to 2003. Siakor and SAMFU worked to bring Liberia's unchecked deforestation into the political spotlight, and to protect the civil and human rights of rural and indigenous populations.

Exploitation of natural resources has been a large factor in Liberia's regional instability and civil war. Indigenous peoples have paid the highest price, suffering human rights violations, community conflict and long-lasting repression.

A recent SAMFU report exposed how the Liberian government's collusion with multinational logging companies has accelerated the destruction of Liberian forests and threatened communities whose livelihoods depend on those forests. SAMFU found that between 1997 and 2001, commercial logging in Liberia increased by an extraordinary 1,300%.

In 2003, Siakor coordinated the First Forest Peoples Congress, bringing together representatives from communities affected by illegal logging. At the gathering, these villagers discussed the violence carried out by companies' security squads, and protested that they had not been consulted before concession holders invaded their lands. Siakor characterized the participants' courage in attending the congress as "overwhelming."

According to him, the meeting marked "a major shift away from the culture of silence that is so prevalent in Liberian society." Siakor hoped to build on the success of the congress by working with the participants to lobby the government for legislative measures against deforestation. Instead, Siakor and his colleagues became the targets of a Senate investigation. Politicians who stood to gain from increased logging attempted to link SAMFU to an alleged international conspiracy to slander the government and the logging industry.

Exploitation of natural resources has been a large factor in Liberia's regional instability and civil war. Indigenous peoples have paid the highest price, suffering human rights violations, community conflict and long-lasting repression.

Soon afterwards, it was announced that the head of the government's Forest Development Authority — who was also former President Taylor's brother — would be placed in charge of the accreditation process for NGOs. Given the nature of the Taylor government, this was a direct threat to SAMFU, Siakor and his staff.

Throughout his regime, President Taylor used timber sales to finance war in neighboring Sierra Leone, after intense international pressure forced him to stop using diamond sales for the same purpose. For example, the Oriental Timber Company (OTC) controls roughly half of what remains of the Upper Guinean Forest ecosystem in Liberia. OTC is estimated to have paid Taylor $3 to $5 million for control of the 1.6 million hectare area.

Taylor's government permitted Oriental and its cohorts to use any means necessary to generate profit and as a result, OTC operates armed militias that harass local residents who stand in their way. Serious human rights violations — including arbitrary arrest, torture, sexual exploitation, severe pollution, and destruction of property — have been reported.

OTC — and other companies implicated in illegal logging and human rights abuses in Liberia — sell their timber to Danish firms such as Dalhoff, Larsen en Horneman (DLH). The timber is then sold in Western Europe, the United States and China. DLH continues to publicly deny that it buys conflict timber — even after a November 2003 surprise inspection at a DLH facility in Amsterdam found conflict timber being prepared for re-shipping.

Liberia's instability has helped to bring greater international scrutiny to the country's conflicttimber industry. In May 2003, the United Nations Security Council placed sanctions on Liberian timber exports. The same international pressure was credited with pushing the Taylor government to create a national and international NGO partnership to protect and sustainably manage national parks and other forest areas.

In August 2003, Taylor was forced to resign after being indicted by a UN Special Court for war crimes involving conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone; he has since fled to Nigeria. It is unknown whether the national and international NGO partnership to manage Liberian forests will proceed under the interim government.

Reports indicate that as part of the agreement that ousted Taylor, his former compatriots have been appointed to powerful positions, and that he communicates regularly from his exile in nearby Nigeria. In the face of increasing humanitarian needs, the UN Security Council has considered easing sanctions against Liberian timber exports under a "food-for-timber" program. This proposal has met with strong opposition from the Non-Governmental Organizations Coalition for Liberia, which includes SAMFU, the Association of Environmental Lawyers of Liberia, the Sustainable Development Institute, and additional Liberian NGOs, who have fought against or monitored illegal logging in Liberia.

International NGOs have strongly recommended that UN sanctions remain in place until wide-ranging reforms are carried out to reduce and begin eliminating illegal logging. In 2004, Silas Kpanan' Ayoung Siakor began working at the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI), a newly accredited NGO originally initiated as a SAMFU research project. As director of SDI, he is presently coordinating Liberian civil society's participation in the forestsector reform mandated by the UN Security Council last November.

Siakor serves on the national committee that was established to review the legitimacy of all logging-concession agreements entered into under the Taylor regime. Siakor says his goal now is "to expand the scope of our work to include monitoring all the natural resources sectors to ensure that resource extraction practices and methods are sustainable, do not unnecessarily degrade or negatively impact the environment, [and that] revenue collection and allocation is transparent and benefits all."

In the meantime, Silas Kpanan' Ayoung Siakor and SAMFU continue to coordinate their struggle to protect Liberia's forests.